I don't know much about Morrison's New X-Men, but lots of people have pointed out the similarity to Tony Stark on the comment threads.

Anyway, do you think this could be the beginning of the end of Batman as a total, straight-up asshole? It seems to me like now that Batman's going to be more of a public figure, he'll have to be much more friendly.

It seems like a new direction for Batman, as a franchise, in that it could spawn a whole raft of new books and characters and whatever if it sticks, but it also reminds me very much of Spider-Man unmasking in Civil War.

Alternate Title: Would Genuinely Enjoy Watching a Taught Thriller in Which Batman Actually Uses His Brains & Wiles to Catch People Instead of Getting Morgan Freeman to Build Him a Deus Ex Machina out of Cell-Phones and Leaving All the Hard Work to Commissioner Gordon.

He works outside the law. He's actually competent. He has a sex dungeon and a really cool car. Why do we need to go beyond this?

Oh man! I just remembered! I had a crazy dream a couple weeks back about the new Batman movie. See, Talia was the villain, only she was in the first movie too somehow, because motherfucking Damian Wayne was there, and he was about the same age he is in the comics. So, um, anyway, Bruce angsts for a bit having a son he never knew about, plus having a crazy crime-committing lady on his tail, then he and Damian team-up somehow, and Bruce realizes, hey, being Batman rocks. So at the end, Damian and him are Batman-and-Robin-ing it up, just having a blast, and when I woke up I was like, "wow, what a baller dream $$$$, too bad the actual movie won't be anything like it though."

i've always preferred the people-aren't-for-sure-if-batman-even-actually-exists take on the character. i am really not interested in tales of an international police force, i am not interested in a tank driving across rooftops on the evening news.

Wow, what an original thought you got there, Raz! Do you just sign up for Bruce Wayne being the mask, or do you also think that Batman should be the lone solitary avenger of the night who WORKS ALONE, DAMMIT?

Seriously though, that's pretty fucking reductive. You telling me you don't want to see a late-night talk host grilling Commissioner Gordon over his involvement with Batman, or talk show radio host ranting about how Batman is bad for the economy or something?

i'm just saying that's my personal favorite take on the character. i find that approach more entertaining; this way it's basically a lot of politics mixed in with the ass-kicking, and i just really want to see the ass-kicking. and anguish. hella anguish.

Guess who just finished the Dark Knight Returns? Me! It was this lady. It was pretty great. I can see why it was such an influential book. I understand, though, that most of the people who were follow in on Frank Miller's success weren't very successful on the whole. I will maybe expand on these thoughts when I'm not on lunch break.

It's one of those comics that, I think, can be mistaken as derivative if someone reads it nowadays, because a lot of stuff mimicked it between then and now. There have been a ton of people who tried to piggyback on the success of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and missed the point entirely. Unfortunately Frank Miller was also one of those people.

_________________LET THE RECORD SHOW THAT ON APRIL FIRST, EIGHT TWENTY-FIVE A.M. JUSTIN PIERCE SAID "BONERS"